The Fry

So it's basically summer, the NBA Finals are on, the World Cup is on, the US Open is on and it's hot outside. Hot, muggy and often rainy. So what can you eat? The patio is sort of off limits, the bars are an option but the food is usually not great. I still want to watch the games though so what can I do? Enter The Fry! Newly opened at Yonge and Sheppard (in the old Armando's) the Fry has expanded down from Yonge and Cummer, offering Korean style fried chicken, soups, alcohol and TVs. Best of all is they generally offer all of those things in the form of combos. Fried chicken and beer in a frozen mug? Garlic and soy sauce fried chicken and soju? Spicy rice cakes, fried chicken and a Coke in a frozen mug? All with a side of special World Cup friendly hours? That's a recipe for success in my mind.

Delicious, golden, juicy, crispy chicken

The chicken was freshly fried, juicy and crispy. The chicken came out golden brown and not the dirty brown indicative of a slacking kitchen not changing the fryer oil. The service was friendly and fluently English despite only having one waitress for the packed resto - perhaps less attentive than normal but we had enough napkins and drink so not much more attention was necessary for the devouring of fried chicken.

Pickled cabbage, salad,
macaroni salad

Spicy rice cakes with cheese,
chicken and cabbage

Garlic soy sauce fried chicken

The bill came to about $55 for three of us. We ordered a half and half combo of garlic and soy fried chicken and original fried chicken along with a spicy rice cake and chicken dish (which was delicious). We had the usual palette cooling side dishes of pickled radish, salad and (maybe not so usual) macaroni salad. We also had one I've never seen before - seared corn with some kind of buttery, mayonaisse-y, cream sauce on it which was actually delicious. The right amount of sweet and salty without being overly greasy or heavy. With the aforementioned drinks in frozen mugs, we were very full but very happy by the end of the meal so I'd say the price was reasonable.

All in all, it was a great experience and I'd definitely expect to be back there soon!

Peace,
B.

Shibuya Izakaya

One of my fondest memories of Shibuya was when I came here on a Wednesday afternoon with a bunch of girl friends and by the end of the night we somehow ended up with 15 empty sake bottles on the table. How did they get there? I dunno. Hehe... :)

I love the food at Shibuya and the staff is very attentive, sometimes a little too attentive but it comes from a good place. I usually order the same dishes whenever I eat here: a miso soup, seaweed salad, a dozen oysters, beef tataki (THE BEST I'VE EVER HAD), salmon sashimi and 1 special roll. Dinner for 2 :)

Salmon Sashimi

Miso Soup

Seaweed Salad

I LOOOOOVE the oysters and beef tataki here. They serve their oysters with a ponzu sauce which is actually the same sauce they put on their tataki -- maybe I just love ponzu sauce. Hehe... The oysters are always fresh and the beef tataki is paper thin so you don't get too much of the raw beef flavour. The key is thin slices, I hate when I order beef tataki and it ends up being too thick.

$1.25 Oysters Mon-Thurs

Beef Tataki

Other notable dishes are the miso black cod, grilled squid, and these delicious curry potato croquette which I'm sure have a proper name that I can't remember at the moment.

On most occasions, when there's only the two of us, we don't order any sushi because I'm always too full from all the other dishes (there's just to many tasty ones to try!) but always try to get at least 1 roll. Recently, they have started doing specialty rolls which have changed every time I go there and they are definitely worth trying -- today, I tried the crispy cajun roll which actually turned out to be really good!

Special Roll

Crispy Cajun Roll

All in all, Shibuya is one of my favourite izakaya restaurants the food is tasty, the service is great, and they always play good music. Throwing a bottle of sake and you have yourself the perfect date night. :)